Silence Among the Weapons is Arden's first work of fiction after more than two decades of writing for the stage. It is a picturesque novel in the classic tradition of English literature, owing something to Defoe and Fielding in its use of a more or less ordinary central character - in this case an actors' agent - who gets caught up in more or less extraordianry events: in this case the expansionist activities of the Republic of Rome in the first century BC. Following his hero's adventures across half the known world from Asia Minor to the very heart of Rome itself, Arden allows us vivid glimpses of a world in turmoil under the heel of colonial ambition and of the furious resistance that this has aroused amongst the subject peoples. By turns comic, satiric and horrific, but always sure-footed in its effects, it is difficult to believe that this brilliant book is in fact a first novel.